VoIP vs Cell Phone Calls or the Benefits of Going Online

Being in any kind of business is a fierce competition. It’s a back and forth, making decisions that will hopefully improve the company’s growth, improve the staff’s efficiency or reduce the costs enough to strengthen that bottom line.

This is why business owners will always have a mobile phone in their pocket, so they can be reached at any time even if they are out of office.

But as much as this idea is advantageous, it’s not necessarily the most cost-effective way of managing business calls, due to the high fees that mobile providers ask for very minute you are on the phone. That’s why thinking outside the box can help by switching to a VoIP app or – better yet – adding your smartphone to your very own cloud phone system.

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Cell Phone Calls Are Okay…

Before we enter VoIP territory, let’s see why it is still beneficial to be able to make cell phone calls on the go. The biggest advantage by far is the most obvious: ease of use and portability. There is a cellular network in most populated areas, so to make a call it’s simply a need to have access to a cell signal. Calls, which usually have outstanding voice quality, can be accepted literally everywhere in the world provided that the place you are staying at has a strong enough cellular network.

And unfortunately cell service is where regular cell phone calls fall flat. It is a well-known fact that some parts of the U.S. have terrible cellular coverage, making calls placed from mobile phones a challenge. Not to mention that most of the time the value for money of mobile plans is unfair: whether subscribing to a pay as you go plan or to an unlimited or prepaid subscription, the prices are usually not on par with the provided service. And of course there are usually additional costs, too, such as mobile internet, MMS or the dreaded data roaming: they are all good for only one thing, taking money from your pocket and your business.

… VoIP Is Better…

Costs is an important factor for any business to consider, and that’s why it is highly beneficial for business owners to make the switch to VoIP. Compared to regular phone calls, a VoIP call that uses your data plan is still a better option than relying on the cellular network. By doing a little math, the results are in favor of VoIP, since the consumption of 1MB of data costs significantly less than one minute used from your phone plan. In other words, no matter what mobile service providers say, VoIP is definitely cheaper.

That doesn’t mean it is devoid of some disadvantages. Just like cell calls with their network requirement, VoIP needs a strong internet connection, and there could be some major audio and reliability issues especially in places with terrible cellular coverage. However, it’s easy to overlook these problems when we consider that VoIP matches the benefits of cell phone calls – in particular its mobility – and adds even more features on top of them.

Such advantages include the option to use your business caller ID when placing VoIP calls, even integrating a smartphone’s contact list into the app. Moreover, a VoIP app switches your mobile device into a softphone, and it even utilizes the latest RCS (Rich Communication Services) technology for business texting. Not to mention that VoIP apps often allow access to the cloud phone system account manager that the company is using, so it can be modified even when you’re out of the office.

Caller IDContactsRCS

VoIP Call With Business Caller ID

Contacts Imported From the Smartphone's Own List

RCS in Action

… But Combining the Two Is the Best

Although both cellular and VoIP calls have their respective advantages, a smart user will make use of both for convenience. In simpler words, nothing is forcing you to keep a mobile phone number for business purposes, but it’s still possible to place and receive business related calls all on a single device.

Cloud phone systems are capable of intelligent call forwarding, meaning that if the caller is unable to reach you on your company’s phone number, the system will then forward it to the next available phone number, which could be set as your mobile. As for calls placed on your behalf, there are nothing but benefits to this including the biggest one by far, the separation of business related calls from your regular phone traffic. And as a nice addition to that, you’ll save money, too, since it will be a significantly cheaper data plan that is used instead of your cell phone minute plan.